Nintendo’s Wii U Can’t Handle ‘Battlefield 4′, DICE Says

Here’s more evidence that Nintendo’s Wii U is destined for the clearance bin: DICE, makers of the hugely popular Battlefield video game franchise, say that the Wii U can’t handle the graphics engine employed by the company’s upcoming Battlefield 4.

Photo via pcgamer.com

That suggests there won’t be a Wii U version of the game when it’s released later this year.

The graphics engine we’re referring to is Frostbite 3, the latest version of the Frostbite engine long used by DICE for its Battlefield games.

“[Frostbite 3] has never been running on Wii U,” noted DICE Technical Director Johan Andersson. “We did some tests with not too promising results with [Frostbite 2] & chose not to go down that path.”

Now, realistically DICE could adapt the Frostbite engine and get Battlefield 4 running on the Wii U. After all, back in March, DICE Executive Producer Patrick Bach admitted that his firm “could probably make a Wii U game in theory” but added that the firm wasn’t interested in spending an excessive amount of “development time” making the necessary changes to Frostbite.

In other words, it’s just too much of a hassle to adapt the powerful Frostbite engine for the Wii U. And why bother? Only a few million units have sold so far.

“Put it all together, and it paints a picture of a system that’s not really ready to handle the high-end graphical experiences third-party developers will be offering this year,” notes Ars Technica’s Kyle Orland.

So, if it can’t handle the games coming out now, how many companies are going to want to build games for it next year, or in the years following?